Getting a Switch - What Should I Know?

[+Sauron]

I'm finally biting the bullet and will buy a Nintendo Switch at the end of the week. What this means is, this'll be the first "current gen" console I've bought since I got a Wii about 15 years ago (wow, can't believe it's been that long!). As such, I haven't kept up with the latest developments as well as many others, which is why I'm asking this. What do I need to know about the Switch in order to maximize my enjoyment of the system? Which games are the best of the best, which are must-haves, and which should be avoided? Which tier of Nintendo Online should I buy? Which accessories do I need? I know these are all open-ended questions, but I'm open to anyone's advice.

 

 

[Lost Monkey]

Get a pro controller and Breath of the Wild.

 

 

[Tanooki]

Honestly, what he said is your best start.  Zelda is a must because it's kind of but not the anti-Zelda, you can not play it like the one on Wii or previous entries from the present, you'll get killed, fast.  It's open world, but not obnoxious like most, very easily sucks you in but does it with style.

 

I'd look hard at what came out physical, then annoyingly limited physical to see if you don't mind just a digital grab to not get ripped off by clowns.  The library is fairly massive to say the least, but a lot of them are indie style games of many genres, so it may be a bit much to just dive into.  I'd do a little research on some genres you like, franchises you remember from the 90s and 00s and see if it's on here then look that way.  It's hard to suggest things when you don't give any clue what you hate or like.  I could suggest arcade games, platformers, rpg/strategy-tactical stuff, first person shooters, pinball, whatever, lots of choices to the point it's a bit much.

 

I would get Animal Crossing though, it's a great slow play over a year or two, doing a few things at a time and slowly growing out and settling your home and island in your style over months...a nice one to relax to at the end of the day or at a crappy moment to chill by.  Also you said console, the system gets a number of PC/walled garden pc-consoles from Sony/MS games too, maybe something there you like got a Switch release you can take on the go which is handy.

 

The accounts though, thankfully super cheap unlike the other guys.  If you're only using ONE system and not with family, get the basic account, it's just $20 a years and the perks are super beyond worth it.  The cloud saving is great if you pop to a friends place, system dies, memory card gets corrupted, whatever, very fast recovery, or if you dump a game, but come back years later, recover your setup.  And obviously the big one, the line up of NES and SNES games is nuts, super variety in there to a point as dumb as it is, you could never buy a game and have too much to do in there if you're open to a lot of genres.  I would NOT buy into the scummy overpriced expanded one, not worth it for a few n64 and genesis games.

[Steven Pendleton]

Joy-cons are trash, and that's literally where you should put them. Get the Pro Controller for docked mode, get the Hori Grip Controller or Split Pad Pro or whatever they call it where you live for handheld mode, and pretend the Joy-cons don't exist. Also get a Retro-Bit Saturn Bluetooth controller for 2D games because the Pro Controller's d-pad is kind of terrible. If you want an arcade stick, Hori RAP V Hayabusa, mostly because the even better Hori RAP N Hayabusa is PC/PS3/PS4/PS5-only, but you can get a converter for that if you want.

 

I don't care about Nintendo's games aside from Fire Emblem and Metroid, so I can't say about anything else, but get Fire Emblem and Metroid. I guess Super Mario Odyssey is decent if you like 3D platformers. It's the only 3D Mario game I've ever enjoyed enough to finish, so that says something... although I also have only played 3 of them. 3D platformers are really not my thing. List of not-Nintendo stuff to get:

 

screen protector

Sonic Mania unless you have it on PC. This is probably the single best not-Sonic 3 & Knuckles game on the system and you need it.

Sonic Origins unless you have it on PC. Yes, it's good, despite its rather exaggerated problems, but yes, it does have problems.

Valkyria Chronicles unless you have it on PC or PS3

Valkyria Chronicles 4 unless you have it on PC

Every M2 ShotTriggers release, especially the Toaplan games

Pretty much everything in Sega Ages aside from Columns and Alex Kidd (they broke the audio in Alex Kidd, apparently. Not sure if they ever fixed it)

Lots of things on Arcade Archives, like Xexex, Big Tournament Golf/Neo Turf Masters, Metal Slug, Gradius 1-3, Thunder Dragon 2, Shock Troopers, In the Hunt

Corpse Party Blood Covered: ...Repeated fear.

Blaster Master Zero Trilogy (Japanese version). Why the Japanese version? Because it's the best release of the trilogy with exclusive content (although I think it's just the voice acting) and has a physical version with all 3 games on 1 cart.

13 Sentinels. I heard they kind of ruined the English script, though...

Shin Megami Tensei V, I guess

 

List of things to not get, or maybe list of things to get if you LOVE kusoge:

Vroom in the Night Sky

 

Maybe I'll remember some other stuff later. Maybe I won't. Three last pieces of advice: get the Pro Controller, get the Pro Controller, and don't forget to get the Pro Controller.

[+Sauron]

Thanks for the advice. As far as the types of games I like, it's hard to say, as any games of any genre can be appealing to me if the game is good. Right now, I'm looking at getting the OLED Switch, along with Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, and Animal Crossing. Guess I'll add the Pro Controller to the list, as I was thinking of getting that anyway. The one game I wasn't sure of is Metroid, but if so I'll pick it up later as the selections I just listed put me at around the max I can spend. 

 

 

[digdugnate]

The Switch, obviously, is one of my favorite consoles so I'm happy to give my two cents!  

 

If you do any amount of gaming on the couch, the Pro Controller is a must-have (if not a little expensive).  I think that Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, and Animal Crossing are really good games to start with!  Consider Nintendo Switch Online for cloud saves and access to the retro stuff, if that tickles your fancy.

 

Again, everyone has their own preferences for games- I'm particularly a sucker for retro collections of games, of which the Switch has ample supply.    If you don't mind, though, I'll list some genres and some of my fave games in no particular order:

 

JRPG - Octopath Traveler (turn-based), Dragon Quest XI (turn-based), Triangle Strategy (turn-based Strategy), Fire Emblem: Three Houses (turn-based Strategy), Xenoblade series

Action RPG - Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Farming-type games - Stardew Valley, Littlewood, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

Rogue-lites - Dead Cells, Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon, Hades, Cadence of Hyrule

Platformers - Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero, Shantae and the Seven Sirens, Shovel Knight, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Racing - Cruisin' Blast (arcade racer), Slipstream ('retro' racer), Horizon Chase Turbo ('retro' racer), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (moreso if you either buy the expansion pass or sub to NSO)

Beat-em-ups - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, Streets of Rage 4, River City Girls, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Shoot-em-ups - Any title in the Darius series

Puzzle/card games - Tetris Effect: Connected, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Dicey Dungeons, Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon, Clubhouse Games 51, World of Solitaire

 

I'm certain I'm missing a ton of games because of the size of the Switch library plus my tastes are certainly not going to be like other folks.  Check out the 'hidden gem' thread for a lot of other suggestions as well.  

 

Enjoy your new Switch!

[Flojomojo]

I concur with @digdugnate’s list — I’m on his Nintendo friends list and he really knows his stuff. 

 

I’m far more casual and I love dabbling in retro and arcade games from the eshop. The only physical game I own is Ring Fit Adventures, because that’s the only way to buy it. The eshop is full of mobile and PC ports which for me is wonderful. Get a big MicroSD card if you’re going to download games. 
 

You might be happy enough with Mario/Zelda/Animal Crossing which are all long, deep games that everyone loves. 

 

Use the Wish List and/or DekuDeals because everything except Nintendo games go on sale a LOT. For example, right now, Horizon Chase is on sale for $5 (from $20) and is awesome.
 

Pro Controller is great. Also consider a Satisfye grip for handheld mode, it makes it much more ergonomic. 
 

Which membership? The basic gives you cloud saves (a must have IMHO), and a big rack of NES/SNES games. The “expansion pack” adds Genesis/N64 and some DLC for Animal Crossing and Mario Kart. Since you’re coming at this cold, the standard plan is probably plenty.  
 

Not sure I’d try to take on 3 giant games (Mario/Zelda/AC) at the same time but different people like different things. 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Flojomojo

[roots.genoa]

Also it may sound obvious, but the eShop has a demo section so I would go there first to download as many of them as I can (provided you got a micro SD card first - 128 or 256GB is enough and should be now affordable). 😉

 

Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn't offer a lot of demos for their own stuff, unless it's for their online games and they're usually limited in time. But demos allowed me to realize games like Klonoa or Valkyria Chronicles 4, which I seriously considered, were in fact not for me. 😅

 

The only game I tend to recommend all the time is Huntdown and usually people thank me for doing so, but it's obviously not for everyone.

 

[digdugnate]

3 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Also it may sound obvious, but the eShop has a demo section so I would go there first to download as many of them as I can (provided you got a micro SD card first - 128 or 256GB is enough and should be now affordable). 😉

 

Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn't offer a lot of demos for their own stuff, unless it's for their online games and they're usually limited in time. But demos allowed me to realize games like Klonoa or Valkyria Chronicles 4, which I seriously considered, were in fact not for me. 😅

 

The only game I tend to recommend all the time is Huntdown and usually people thank me for doing so, but it's obviously not for everyone.

 

The SD card is a really obvious point I forgot about!  Yessss, do yourself a favor and get a larger SD card.  They're cheap enough

[zzip]

I concur that the joycons aren't so good and the range is terrible.   I can be sitting in a typically living room playing on TV only about 6-8ft from the Switch and joycons will periodically lose connection to the console.

[+Sauron]

Thanks again for the advice, everyone, I really appreciate it.

 

Yes, tackling the three games I mentioned all at once is a bit much, but I wasn't planning to do so. Perhaps I should leave one or two of them off my list until I can get around to them? That would free up a bit of cash. The only problem is, all three have discounts at Best Buy right now, and I don't know how long those will last. On top of that, I know at least Animal Crossing is one that's probably not a "play for hours" type, based on what I remember from previous versions. 

 

Digital downloads are something I probably won't be able to avoid, so I know an SD card is a must. I already have a 64GB SD card that's sitting around doing nothing right now, so I was thinking of using it for the Switch until I need to get a larger one. Is there a way to migrate data from one SD card to another, or are you pretty much just stuck with an SD card as-is if you start using it?

 

One last thing I was thinking about is accessories, in particular a carrying case. Any good ones that can be recommended? 

 

 

[MrBeefy]

I haven't played Zelda but that sounds like a solid start. Mario was just plain fun to play and I have had mixed feelings with 3D Mario games over the years. 

 

Animal Crossing is just chill.

 

If you are like me you will browse the store and drop a few bucks here and there on games in the eShop. Wishlists stuff is your friend. 

 

As far as the Online stuff goes I get the Expansion pass, but my wife likes the N64 games and we like some of the additional things. If you don't care about N64 you could probably skip it.

[+Sauron]

 

Just got my Switch, and the bundle of games that you can see above. I held off on getting a Pro Controller for now, but might pick one up a bit later. I added my friend code in the pinned thread in this forum, so feel free to add me!

 

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

You should know that Animal Crossing has CURLY again, and he's the best character of ALL TIME, so there's that. Oh, and also Camofrog and Ribbot. THE. BEST.

 

Congrats on making the jump, wife and I have absolutely loved ours since we impulse bought about a month ago.

 

Sidenote: I see digdugnate's post but what are some good roguelikes for the ol' Switch? Light or heavy.

[+Gemintronic]

Yeah.  I wouldn't know how to use those "joystick" things on the side.  First thing I did was get a wireless joystick and an official dock.  It's the only modern console in the livingroom.

 

If the wireless connectivity goes I always have to go into the system settings and go through the connection setup as if I'm trying wireless for the first time.  It at least remembers the password so fair enough.

 

HAMSTER has its Arcade Archives series which I buy classic games from instead of whatever poor emulation service Nintendo offers.

 

The smaller Switch doesn't have HDMI out so don't get that.  You'll be using it as a handheld less than you think.

[+Sauron]

8 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

You should know that Animal Crossing has CURLY again, and he's the best character of ALL TIME, so there's that. Oh, and also Camofrog and Ribbot. THE. BEST.

 

Congrats on making the jump, wife and I have absolutely loved ours since we impulse bought about a month ago.

 

Sidenote: I see digdugnate's post but what are some good roguelikes for the ol' Switch? Light or heavy.

Dude, where's your friend code? 

 

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

21 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Dude, where's your friend code? 

 

 

SW-6285-6782-8989

[digdugnate]

17 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

You should know that Animal Crossing has CURLY again, and he's the best character of ALL TIME, so there's that. Oh, and also Camofrog and Ribbot. THE. BEST.

 

Congrats on making the jump, wife and I have absolutely loved ours since we impulse bought about a month ago.

 

Sidenote: I see digdugnate's post but what are some good roguelikes for the ol' Switch? Light or heavy.

I really enjoyed Moonlighter and Downwell.     Downwell is pretty minimalistic but so much fun!

[digdugnate]

8 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

SW-6285-6782-8989

Mwhaha, now i can stalk you! 

[+Sauron]

Been playing the hell out of my Switch the last 24 hours, and have a few observations:

 

Mario Odyssey is really damn fun. Enjoying it quite a bit so far.

 

Animal Crossing is like meeting up with a long lost friend after so many years. I missed this type of game.

 

The joycons aren't nearly as bad as many of you are making them out to be, but then again I'm mainly using them in handheld mode (not detached). I have a wireless controller that was Switch-compatible out of the box and it works quite well, too, although the d-pad is trash.

 

The OLED screen is beautiful. Can't really compare it to the original screen, but if you're going to buy a brand new Switch, there's no reason to not get the OLED model.

 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is, well, Mario Kart. Not that that's a bad thing.

 

The amount of games on the eshop is simply overwhelming. Outside of Nintendo's 1st party titles, it seems impossible to find stuff unless you know exactly what you're looking for. 

 

I haven't tackled BOTW yet. I didn't want to start off with it in order to not make my Switch experience downhill from the beginning. I'll start on it once I've either beaten Mario Odyssey or need to take a break from it, whichever comes first. 

 

Overall, I do not regret this purchase at all. In fact, I'm wondering why in the hell I didn't get the Switch a long time ago.

 

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

I've been pretty exclusively playing Animal Crossing. LOL. I'm about at the plateau point though, where I'll need to get the expansion.

[digdugnate]

6 hours ago, Sauron said:

Been playing the hell out of my Switch the last 24 hours, and have a few observations:

 

Mario Odyssey is really damn fun. Enjoying it quite a bit so far.

 

Animal Crossing is like meeting up with a long lost friend after so many years. I missed this type of game.

 

The joycons aren't nearly as bad as many of you are making them out to be, but then again I'm mainly using them in handheld mode (not detached). I have a wireless controller that was Switch-compatible out of the box and it works quite well, too, although the d-pad is trash.

 

The OLED screen is beautiful. Can't really compare it to the original screen, but if you're going to buy a brand new Switch, there's no reason to not get the OLED model.

 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is, well, Mario Kart. Not that that's a bad thing.

 

The amount of games on the eshop is simply overwhelming. Outside of Nintendo's 1st party titles, it seems impossible to find stuff unless you know exactly what you're looking for. 

 

I haven't tackled BOTW yet. I didn't want to start off with it in order to not make my Switch experience downhill from the beginning. I'll start on it once I've either beaten Mario Odyssey or need to take a break from it, whichever comes first. 

 

Overall, I do not regret this purchase at all. In fact, I'm wondering why in the hell I didn't get the Switch a long time ago.

 

 

Maybe I don't represent the joycons fairly because of my own personal opinion.  

 

I have arthritis in my hands pretty badly so their form factor just does. not. work. for me.  I kinda would like it, too, if the left joycon had a dpad instead of the buttons.  (I also turn off force feedback in almost every game except the ones that require it, like Mario Odyssey in parts)

 

If I'm on the couch my preference is to use a Pro controller over like the joycons and the little dock thingy for them, and if I'm playing portable I have a set of Hori Split joycons that are way more ergonomic.  

 

There is a bit of the 'firehose' effect when it comes to the Switch library, but the overwhelming feeling eventually goes away when you start figuring out what you want.   Flojo I think recommended using Deku Deals; you can use that or the eshop to build up 'wish lists' of games you want to keep an eye on or occasionally check for a sale.  Also consider using the built-in filter (I filter generally for price ranges) like on the 'on sale' stuff on the eshop.  

 

Welcome to the Switch family.  One of us!  One of us!

 

[Steven Pendleton]

The problem with the Joy-cons is that it is extremely likely that the analog sticks will eventually start to constantly give you false readings. You may not have problems now, but you likely will in the future. I believe Nintendo is currently facing multiple class-action lawsuits globally because of this, so yeah, I'm not just making this up; it's extremely likely that your Joy-cons will eventually malfunction, leaving them completely useless. Obviously, that's extremely bad, but that + the d-pad substitute thingy is absolutely horrible (try playing a fighting game or STG with this thing and you'll see how terrible it is) + you may find them awkward to hold depending on the size of your hands = yeah, these things are about as useful as the Kinect or the Sega Activator. Interestingly, the Joy-cons seem to have the least input lag of all Switch controllers, including the Pro Controller and even wired ones, because apparently the USB protocol in the Switch dock is so damn slow that wired controllers are actually slower than Bluetooth in most cases. Yeah, great job, Nintendo.

 

The Pro Controller is much better, but the main reason that you want it isn't because Pro Controller is super excellent or whatever (but it is mostly decent, aside from its questionable d-pad, which is not particularly accurate), it's because it's not the Joy-cons. The Joy-cons are fortunately still useful for something, though; if you see a mosquito on your wall and don't want to physically move to its location to go kill it, you can always throw your Joy-cons at it. Nintendo was nice enough to give you a second one in case you miss your first shot, too!

 

The Switch has one of the largest shovelware libraries of anything ever aside from Steam, which is part of why the eshop sucks. As you've noticed, it's pretty useless due to how hard it is to find anything unless you specifically search for it... I basically only use it for Arcade Archives. There is still some other good digital-only stuff on there, like Corpse Party, VOEZ, Arcaea, Sega Ages, and the various Konami collections, but for the most part, I stay away from it as much as possible. It's so unresponsive that I often feel like it's about to crash, and I have tried to make it crash, but no success so far... although I'm not sure if that should make me sad or not.

 

Oh yeah, I should probably explain Arcade Archives: every week, and I do mean literally every week without fail (since 2014 for PS4, I believe, although I don't remember when Switch ACA began), Hamster releases a perfectly-emulated arcade game. Many of these are the first arcade-perfect home releases of these titles. Definitely don't miss these, as there are a lot of extremely good games in there and they are super cheap. How they keep up this pace with that quality is beyond me.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Steven Pendleton

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Oh yeah, I should probably explain Arcade Archives: every week, and I do mean literally every week without fail (since 2014 for PS4, I believe, although I don't remember when Switch ACA began), Hamster releases a perfectly-emulated arcade game. Many of these are the first arcade-perfect home releases of these titles. Definitely don't miss these, as there are a lot of extremely good games in there and they are super cheap. How they keep up this pace with that quality is beyond me.

Actually there weren't any new game this week! 😅

 

Also it took me more than five years to start having very mild drifting with my Joy-con analog sticks, the kind that goes away as soon as you touch them a little. That being said, I probably didn't use them as much as most people, since I play a lot of retro games and prefer the d-pad or the directional buttons (that I don't dislike, fight me! At least you can't unwillingly hit a diagonal for instance).

[Steven Pendleton]

6 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Actually there weren't any new game this week! 😅

Not in Europe for some reason, but everywhere else got Metrocross. Interesting that you guys got skipped...

 

6 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Also it took me more than five years to start having very mild drifting with my Joy-con analog sticks, the kind that goes away as soon as you touch them a little. That being said, I probably didn't use them as much as most people, since I play a lot of retro games and prefer the d-pad or the directional buttons (that I don't dislike, fight me! At least you can't unwillingly hit a diagonal for instance).

You're lucky; mine are basically completely unusable and have been for some time now. I don't even know how since I have very few 3D games on Switch and I rarely play them...